Comments

I see Olaus attempted something in addition to insults and links to loony blogs; a link to an actual research paper.

Speaking of which: [link to report that emperor penguin populations are likely to decline in the coming century]

On the other hand: [link to a paper that describes a single census but includes the sentence ‘Understanding the causes of penguin decline will however require additional effort.’]

Olaus: the ‘on the other hand’ suggests you never actually read the paper. Try again, but this time, if you can, find research that actually supports your views and try a little harder to keep your insults in check.

What’s that, Skippyduff?
You spend most of your time rolling around and wallowing in the ordurous Anthony’s site and then wonder why you still have no grasp of even simple concepts like ‘weather’ and ‘climate’?
Well Skippyduff, I’d recommend a two month bracing, cleansing shower over at Real Climate where you might train yourself to recognise actual science as opposed to anthonyquackery.
That is, I *would* do that, but we all know how you hoppity skippity little fellas just love caking yourselves thickly in sh!t and stupidity the whole live-long day.

“We estimated the breeding population of emperor penguins at each colony during 2009 and provide a population estimate of ~238,000 breeding pairs (compared with the last previously published count of 135,000–175,000 pairs).”

An increase.

The decline you want to understand is stil all about “may” or “will”, hence “polarbeared” seems appropriate. So the sentence “understanding the causes of penguin decline will however require additional effort” should be “understanding the causes of a possible penguin decline will however require additional effort”, at least when it comes to emperor penguins.

As usual, Putrid is out of his depth. The IUCN has recently revised the status of the Emperor Penguin from being a ‘species of least concern’ to ‘near threatened’. And of course penguins are of course not the only example of biodiversity being deleteriously affected by climate change and many other anthropogenic factors. The number of endangered or threatened species on the IUCN lists is larger now than ever, and of course still rapidly growing. We are into the planet’s sixth extinction event and the first to be generated by one of its evolved inhabitants – us. Hardly a advertisement for evolutionary success – or one that shows how intelligence can be ‘self-extinguishing’, as E.O. Wilson recently wrote.

I’m sure you are reffering [sic] to the hiatus of the warming trend (of 10-15 years) that has “showed up” despite the record levels of Co2? [sic]

Someone is so ignorant of the nature of data, and of their statistics, that he doesn’t understand that given the current rate of warming (a touch under 2 degrees celcius per century) and given the existing random noise in the Earth’s climate signal (that is, the weather), the planet could warm consistently and continuously for a thousand years, and reach an average global temperature 20 degrees warmer than the present, and always demonstrate a statistically defined hiatus “of the warming trend (of 10-15 years)”.

Olaus Petri is either a propagandist, or an idiot.

And as I have noted in the past with similar juxtapositions, these conditions are not mutually exclusive.

As P Lewis clearly showed in his above response, scientists generally try to discover how the universe and its systems work. But to Petard and his ilk, they are either incompetent or unreconstructed Stalinists out to impose an agenda on freedom loving peoples. Either fantasy would fit with the example Petard singularly failed to show with his links above, or with his ongoing ‘attack the scientists’ vendetta.

The rather more mundane reality that Petard himself is too uneducated in the relevant fields, too unintelligent , too politically motivated and lacks the necessary critical thinking skills to make head or tail of science in any rational way is an inconvenient truth best ignored for the sake of his puffed-up egotism.

True to form, he will ignore being shown to be the idiot he is yet again, and as per the definition of insanity, will try the same tired means again and again and predictably, yet again. Like Duff, he’ll never learn.

Now we’re calm, Nahle’s work is *presented* as if it’s scientific. But even if you do something as simple as dimensional analysis (something you should have been taught in High School physics), you find his work falls down.

He has a citation list that LOOKS like the citation list you see at the end of a *real* physics paper, but you find that none (or only a small minority) actually cite any facts he states as if true (the reason why a citation is put in a paper. I.e. if they don’t calculate the specific heat capacity with temperature of CO2, then they’ll cite a paper that DOES).

Just like a scam artist using official headed notepaper to make you believe just on casual inspection, that the invitation to a new conference is genuine, Nahle’s “papers” are constructed to *appear* like a science paper.

But it’s no more a factual account than The Sunday Sport (The National Inquirer in the USA would be the equivalent) is a genuine news source.

Judith’s crime is to pass them off as genuine because she has peddled the idea that she is competent and honest.

That you fell for the scam is their fault. We’re trying to show you that you’ve been gulled.

Which on an immediate emotional reaction level would make you angry: “you calling be stupid!!!”.

PS my post was that you don’t have to put many words to an apology. “Sorry Jeff” was completely adequate. Abasement (or Notpology which requires more words to pull off) isn’t necessary. Just “Sorry”.

Shockingly, Duffer is wrong about that. There was above average rain in 2009, 2010 and 2011, but the average temperatures were 0.7 above average, 0.6 above average and 0.4 below average respectively. So that’s actually a whole one summer in a row that was below average.

The ludicrousness of proclaiming 2012 wet and cool after the princely total of 21 days speaks for itself.

Fellas, no need to please me with friedly words. The emperor penguins might take a nose dive due to climate change, or maybe not. And it might be an A involeved, or mabe not. The paper Richard S made such a fuzz about showed nothing of a “decline” besides a big If. If sure has incarserated your authoritarian minds. 😉

That’s why you guys can’t understand the meaning of words. Pay attention to the “may”:

“An accurate assessment of the emperor penguin (Aptenodytes fosteri) population is urgently needed as recent research indicates that numbers may decrease significantly in coming decades [1], [2], [3]. These studies have highlighted the susceptibility of emperor penguins to changes in sea ice distribution.”

Now pay attention to the worries of lesser ice, because that also is a concern in Lewis’ link (that ended up in an 12 year old paper, mind you). I hope he noticed that the authors blamed the decline of emperor penguins to the loss of ice:

“We show that over the past 50 years, the population of emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) in Terre Adélie has declined by 50% because of a decrease in adult survival during the late 1970s. At this time there was a prolonged abnormally warm period with reduced sea-ice extent.”

But since the ice extent in Antarctica is increasing, not decreasing (given the latest report), and the population of emperor penguins is improving, maybe we should worrie about an increase of penguins to unprecedented levels that, in the end, could harm the delicate ecology of the Antarctic region:

So I wasn’t wrong, Frank, I was right, it has been four wet summers in a row. And as for your “average” temperatures, average of what, and who measured them? If your answer is the Met Office please excuse my giggles. And is it raw data or adjusted?

And no-one has answered my question as to when weather becomes climate? Er, ‘when it suits us’ is not a very compelling answer.

The NOAA’s National Climate Data Center recently announced that the last 12 months were the warmest on record in the “contiguous” U.S., extending the 2011-12 hot streak that has now eclipsed the previous record in 1999-2000 by a half degree Fahrenheit. Apparently, that was just too much for the Heartland Institute’s James Taylor who used his regular column in Forbes magazine to accuse the NOAA of “doctoring real-world temperature data”. According to Taylor, the “alarmists” at NOAA “simply erase the actual readings and substitute their own desired readings in their place”.

But it turns out that Taylor’s source is none other than hapless climate blogger Steven Goddard, who recently leveled incoherent and unsupported false accusations against James Hansen and NASA’s Gistemp record, as well as NOAA. Goddard also relies on the same reviled NOAA data in his botched attempt to buttress his case that NASA is “hiding” an 80 year cooling trend. Never mind that the U.S. “lower 48″ represents less than 2% of the Earth’s surface area in any event, or that past attempts to show U.S. cooling have been proven utterly wrong.

If Forbes has a shred of integrity, this sorry episode will surely result in an abject retraction and apology to NOAA, along with the banishment of Heartland from the magazine’s pages. And it’s also high time reputable commentators in the mainstream media called out the irresponsible behaviour of Forbes and other right-wing media.

Olaus claims that the paper on emperor penguins he cited documents an increase in their population. Not so. The authors used a completely new survey technique (including satellite imagery) that ‘found four new colonies and confirmed the location of three previously suspected sites’. They were attempting to establish a good, reliable baseline for future studies. Olaus: you need to read critically, understanding the experimental procedures and how they may affect the results.

The paper Richard S made such a fuzz about

In your imagination! It was you who brought it up and I merely pointed out that it does not show what you think it shows.

We’re a funny old thing us humanz and we all have different perspectives. Perspective is essentially what moulds opinion and when it comes down to this AGW issue there can be only two opinions……whether or not man is changing the global climate.
When I look at the arguement between Nasif Nahle and Neutrino over at Jennifer Marohasy’s from my perspective I can see a scientist with the cojones and maths capability to come out and challenge the establishment (what you guys represent). Would an American,Canadian,Uk, NZ, have done this?
As for the climate scientists…. well…”Phyeeseks, we don’t need no steenkin’ physeeseks”

…and its ramifications. Most of the stories I have read are from sites with which I am unfamiliar. I am trying to see if this is internet spin, or if this thing is really has the possibility of seeing the light of day. A journalist friend sent the original link to me which was this.

I am very curious to the opinions on the report from those here who live there as I know there are many.

Honest question. Does anyone support this thinking, even if you believe The Australian spouts deception in science–another thing all together and an opinion I don’t disagree with from what I have read–keeping in mind that this thing appears to pertain to all discussions, not just scientific issues?

Dear Richard S, the census in question didn’t come up with a decrease. That’s the main thing. If anything it showed an increase. I’m sure the results and the methods used can be criticized, no problem with that.

Nothing to add regarding the inverted ice problem that now threatens to make the number of emperor penguins to sky rocket? 😉

BPW this subject has been brought up here before, if it is spoken about in here you are labled a whacko conspiracy theorist nutter.

The reason is that if this Finkelstein Report was put into law it would stop information and reporting about the lie’s being spewed forth by the AGW minions in here, these idiots in here want it !!!!

Mind you they only want it because of all the information about the IPCC and AGW that is being continuously uncovered is hugely embarrassing to them, and they all are looking more foolish by the day.

If you scroll back up the thread you will see the other side of the coin, Barnturd J.
June 19, 3:36 pm grizzle gutsing about Gina Rinehart who holds different views to him/it, never mind the fact that Barnturd supports the ABC, our government run propaganda machine.

I doubt very much that the current government in this country will remain in power, good riddance to bad rubbish I say, and I have mostly always voted for them.

The future prime minister has recently repeated that he will rescind the carbon tax here, no doubt if the Finkelstein Report, or part there of, is passed in parliament and bought into law it will remain, but what do those in here care ?

if Nasif Nahle really has the alleged ‘cojones and maths capability to come out and challenge the establishment’ let’s see him publish something somewhere other than some inconsequential anti-environmentalist blog like Jennifer Marohasy’s.

Simple.

He won’t try, of course, because it’s rather more fun to be feted as a genius by the rowdies of the far Right than to watch your work shot down in flames by the merely competent.

And, oh, the irony; the friends of the Koch Brothers and Exxon cast themselves as being up against ‘the Establishment’! You could not make it up…

‘Karen’, true to your identity, never let knowledge of an issue stand in the way of being an ignorant Tea Party loudmouth, will you?

After all, it’s your raison d’etre.

BPW needs to learn how to present him of herself upon arriving if he wants people to have a reasoned discussion of some matter. Better yet, find a blog where people are actually debating the Finkelstein Report, rather than playing tone/concern troll here with it.

They probably have more to say on the matter at Crooked Timber, Crikey, or even over at John Quiggin’s – even the ABC MediaWatch comment threads, come to think of it – I suggest you try. If you’re sincere you will.

Rinehart G may well have a different opinion to Bernard J, but Bernard hasn’t just demanded three seats on the Fairfax Board. What kind of infantile fantasist do you have to be to not grasp that in our Corporatised Media Landscape some animals are waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more equal than others? Servile Pollyannaish BS about Murdoch and Rinehart just having ‘opinions that they’re entitled to like eveyone else’ makes my flesh crawl…

Peterd brayed: “Nothing to add regarding the inverted ice problem that now threatens to make the number of emperor penguins to sky rocket?”

Antarctic sea ice is seasonally variable. The whole polar bear problem (which another of your earlier snide remarks alluded to) in tha arctic is because the extent of the arctic cryosphere is now becoming seasonal, which it wasn’t before.

I strongly suspect that neither you nor I know enough about penguin lifestyles to know how the spectacular break up up the ice shelves around the West Antarctic peninsula will impact the region’s ecology.

But then I’m not the one pretending to after twenty seconds of googling to make a point informed mainly by ignorance.

Karen, the only thing deltoids are consistant with is their faiblesse for making stuff up, including political preferences of their opponents.

They live in a world of conspiracies where the right wingers are all over the place, obstructing justice and promoting evil. Another common demonimator of the deltoids is of coures their hateful intolerance towards anything not like themselves.

And what do you have to be, dear ‘Karen’, to devote your time to haunting the blogs of those you don’t agree with specifically in order to antagonise people and clog up any discussion with half-digested nuggets of chum? All the while deploying the Primary School Trump Card – ‘I know you are, but what am I?’

Answer of course, is ‘Troll’.

Watch out, if you keep at it too long you end up as Olaus. There’s no way back from there.

(At least ‘faiblesse’ now gives us some clear idea what English is a second language to in this case…)

Just watched Dellingpole on Andrew Neil’s Political show on BBC and again he relied on the “statistical significant” meme, completely ignoring that in 2011 it became statistically significant. The guy made me scream at the TV.

the census in question didn’t come up with a decrease. That’s the main thing. If anything it showed an increase.

A single data point can never show either an increase nor a decrease. I would have thought that would be obvious. The main point is either that you thought it could be quickly passed off as showing an increase, or that you were sufficiently unaware that you really thought it did show an increase.

Nothing to add regarding the inverted [?] ice problem that now threatens to make the number of emperor penguins to sky rocket?

I gather that in the near future (next 50 years), Antarctic ice is expected to advance in some areas (greater snowfall, don’t you know?) and retreat in others. Are you claiming that this won’t affect penguin numbers or are you claiming that biologists should not study them? If not, why not?

If you scroll back up the thread you will see the other side of the coin, Barnturd J.
June 19, 3:36 pm grizzle gutsing about Gina Rinehart who holds different views to him/it, never mind the fact that Barnturd supports the ABC, our government run propaganda machine.

I support an Australian media where one of the largest companies is free from the complete control of all content by one very extreme and very rich individual, who is hell-bent on ensuring that the whole country’s political landscape is massaged to ensure that she becomes even more wealthy than the wealthiest woman on the planet.

I make no apologies for this stance. You see, I actually believe in a non-propagandised democracy. If you have a different point of view, you’re past being right wing, and heading straight past Godwin territory to boot.

All the right-wing neo-feudalist blogs are positively crawling with devoutly observant rabid environmentalists who only object to the infringement of billionaires’ rights to dump carbon into the atmosphere.

Fellas, no need to please me with friedly words. The emperor penguins might take a nose dive due to climate change, or maybe not. And it might be an A involeved, or mabe not. The paper Richard S made such a fuzz about showed nothing of a “decline” besides a big If. If sure has incarserated your authoritarian minds. 😉

That’s why you guys can’t understand the meaning of words. Pay attention to the “may”:

“An accurate assessment of the emperor penguin (Aptenodytes fosteri) population is urgently needed as recent research indicates that numbers may decrease significantly in coming decades [1], [2], [3]. These studies have highlighted the susceptibility of emperor penguins to changes in sea ice distribution.”

and in doing so demonstrates that he does not understand the language of science.

In this context, “may” doesn’t mean the “slight possibility” that Petri wants it to mean, it means “it’s very likely so, but because we’re scientists we don’t make absolute statements, and therefore we’re going to frame our assertion conservatively”.

The simple facts are:

1) in the long term the warming of the planet will melt ice, even in Antartica, and

2) without ice penguins are stuffed.

Neither statement is controvertial; the former is likely to occur, and the latter is inevitable if and whe the former eventuates.

Olaus Petri’s spin is just so much misrepresenting denialist propaganda.

Gawd, you folks could be out-thunk with one hemisphere tied behind the back!

Tim L’s blog can hardly be ‘inconsequential’ in your own opinion, can it? – you’re here all the time!

WUWT might safely be called many things, but I wouldn’t label it ‘inconsequential’, sadly.

In this context, ‘inconsequential’ means of only some interest and only to people like yourself.

Betty draws a remarkably long bow on the basis of – wait for it – an adopted moniker, whereas LB has reams of raving to go by in making an assessment of Olaus and KarenMcSpot’s clearly dysfunctional personalities.

Hey, just caught up on that Marlowe Johnson link re McK – what’s the population density of the Pacific Ocean? What happens if you take the population of the entire US, average it across its area, and then claim that’s the population density – and indicative temp-driving affluence – of, say, Cottonwood Falls, Kansas? Kake Alaska? the Mojave Desert?

(hope the formatting hasn’t changed, but no preview, so who knows). It’s about the RIO+20 conference and written by someone with a background in pyschology. Like many others, he looks on with some bemusement at this “believer” pantomime.

I can’t speak for Mack or Sunspot but I would say that I am very disappointed that you, a Phd Fartologist, can’t enable your own olfactory system to sniff out and bring to the fore the stench that is disguised as climate science, maybe you need to clean your teeth and gargle with some Harpic, the verbal diarrhea that you spew forth is mere flatus.

Read in between the lines, Karenmackspot. He’s quite deliebrately been cut out of the party. You have no problem arguing that a cold day is proof global warming is a UN scam, so I don’t know how you fail to make this connection.

Hey, Geniuses – if precipitation has increased with the intensified hydrological cycle due to AGW, but it’s, um, winter, or you’re at a high altitude, what form might that precipitation be likely to take? (Hint, like yourselves, it’s flaky.)

Yep, Monckton joining the Birthers in earnest really finished him, at least with everyone who isn’t crazy enough to be a troll on Deltoid…

In other developments on the Monckton front, the potty Lord seems to be shifting his business plan from AGW denial into Obama birther claims. More notoriety and money to be made on that front in a US election year it seems. A ‘member of the House of Lords’ who isn’t a member of the House of Lords claiming the President isn’t the President should backfire nicely.

I’m guessing you aren’t too familiar with UK politics. Being leader of UKIP in Scotland is about as minor a political role as it is possible to have. UKIP polled 0.28% of first preference votes in the 2012 Scottish council elections. Call it a banishment rather than an ousting if you prefer.

Perhaps “Karen” is from one of those redneck states in the north of Australia where they’ve never heard of cold weather in summer. Heck, even I’ve been skiing at Mount Buller in April. Bushwalkers in Victoria have complained about white things falling on them in February for a long time, and then there’s Tasmania’s weather.

@ Bernerd 11.50am.
Your “scenerio” is not physics but unsubstantiated theoretical AGW constructed climatology. Your 1,2,3,4 fabrication is in reality is just circumlocutious crap .
Very much like everything else you say.